This video created by International IDEA Based on case studies, the film 'Making Waves: Expressions of Gender Equality in the Sacred Texts and Islamic Tradition' explores women and men as scholars and activists promoting interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadiths that empower women and promote justice, equality and dignity.

The Ethiopian woman in Khartoum, Sudan, who was gang raped by seven men, has been denied by the Attorney General the ability to make a formal complaint of rape and thus instigate a full investigation. She has instead been charged with adultery which carries the potential sentence of death by stoning.

Three European women went on trial in Tunis on Wednesday for holding a topless anti-Islamic protest, and their French lawyer said he was confident they would escape prison despite the threat of jail sentences.

Pauline Hillier and Marguerite Stern from France, and Josephine Markmann from Germany arrived in court around 0930 GMT wearing the traditional Tunisian headscarf, or safsari.

Islamic hardliners vowed Thursday to stop the “immoral” Miss World beauty pageant taking place in Indonesia even after organisers agreed this year's contestants would not wear bikinis.

The Hizb ut-Tahrir group slammed the show as like “selling women's bodies”and threatened to hold demonstrations against it, while a group in the province where the final is due to take place also voiced strong opposition.

Stoning is not simply a relic of the past. In fifteen countries around the world, this brutal punishment and form of torture continues to exist in the here and now.

In 2008, a 16 year old from Iraqi Kurdistan named Aziz eloped with a man against her parents’ wishes. Fearful of her life, she sought help from the Department to End Domestic Violence. Yet the Department turned her over to her father, and her family subsequently stoned her to death.

Saudi Arabia has introduced a campaign aimed at tackling domestic violence against women in the kingdom. The King Khalid Foundation funds the campaign, which is a royal, family-run organization with clear ties to the Saudi government.

Hardline students protested in Afghanistan's capital, demanding the repeal of a presidential decree for women's rights that they say is un-Islamic. The protest came days after conservative politicians' vehement opposition blocked an attempt to cement the decree's provisions in law.

The public killing of a woman in Afghanistan is further proof that the authorities are still failing to tackle the shocking levels of gender-based violence in the country, Amnesty International said today. The woman, who has two children, was shot dead by her father in front of a crowd of about 300 people in the village of Kookchaheel, in the Aabkamari district of Badghis province in north-western Afghanistan.